Newington's Lizzy Roberts looks at the UK’s EU position paper on confidentiality and access to documents.
The Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) published the second of its Q2 position papers on 21 August, focusing on confidentiality and access to documents. The paper’s intention is to make sure information shared between the UK and EU prior to Brexit remains classified following departure.
Key provisions
The UK sets out the general principles that:
Analysis
Essentially, the paper outlines that officials who received confidential information while the UK was a Member State of the EU, should maintain the obligation not to disclose this information following the UK’s departure. It outlines that information pertaining to UK individuals and interests, such as economic or sector data used in EU trade deals or internal market discussions should continue to be afforded the same protection as during the UK’s membership of the EU.
The EU published a similar paper, titled “issues relating to the Functioning of the Union Institutions, Agencies and Bodies” in late June. This outlines that any EU classified information received before the withdrawal date should have the same level of protection guaranteed. As such, maintaining confidentiality and information protection is unlikely to be a controversial topic during negotiations.
Next steps
Three further papers are expected this week ahead of the third round of EU/UK negotiations scheduled from 28 August.
If you would like to speak to Newington about how your business could best outline its position to the Government please get in touch with our dedicated Brexit team at [email protected] or call Lizzy Roberts on 020 7234 3332.
